30 October 2012 6:05 PM

So means-testing child benefit is popular? Looks more like an own goal to me

One of the more bizarre claims of recent days is that the
Government's proposed means-testing of child benefit is popular.

Ministers plan to cut child benefit for families where
one parent earns more than £50,000 and to eliminate it entirely where the annual
salary is above £60,000.

Couples in this income bracket face losing up to £1752 a
year if they have two children - more if they have bigger families.

This week 1.2 million families are receiving letters from
the taxman telling them that they will be out of pocket from January.

Yet this is popular? Removing a couple of thousand pounds
from middle class families in the depths of a recession with family budgets
under severe pressure right across the country is popular?

The source of this claim is a Populus poll conducted for
the Conservative Party. It found that 82 per cent of people earning £55,000 to
£69,000 were in favour of the change, prompting a Tory source to say,
"this is one of our most popular policies".

This is a most extraordinary finding. On this basis, the
Government should press ahead with cutting other benefits paid to better off
pensioners, such as the winter fuel allowance, free bus passes and free TV
licences.

But have the pollsters asked the right questions? Surely,
what matters politically is whether the child benefit cut will make its targets
more or less likely to vote Conservative?

One cannot but wonder that at least some of this group
will bitterly resent losing a key component of the family budget. And it is
hard to imagine that the £50,000 plus brigade will be waltzing into the polling
booths at the next election eager to vote Conservative because they have been
impoverished to the tune of £1,000 to £2,000 a year.

Then there is all the form-filling that will be required
for HMRC to claw back the child benefit money from higher earners. Since when
has ploughing through tax forms been popular?

On top of that is the scope for abuse. The taxman can
easily check on the financial status of married couples. But where the parents
are unmarried, they will have to declare that they are living together and not
merely lodgers or friends.

The whole thing looks like a gigantic mess in the making.
Time, energy and accountant's fees will be absorbed in filling out
self-assessment forms; mistakes will be made; and fraud looks inevitable.

Conservative MP Mark Field is nearer to the truth when he
says: "It's going to be a lot of pain and very little gain."

But I guess we have to remember when the Tories lose
further ground among the middle classes, the group clobbered by this change,
that it is popular, whatever that means.

This is all down to the Department for Equality, and yes we do have one. The Government now has to prove that the 'poor' aren't adversely affected in any way. Yes, our 'poor' are happy about 'rich' people losing benefits in the same way that our 'rich' folks are happily gloating about the forthcoming widespread benefit cutbacks, in the belief it won't affect them. The 'rich' now have to lose money in order for money to be taken from the poor, because to a certain sector, that's 'fair'. The taxpayer picks up the bills, naturally.

'It's going to be a lot of pain and very little gain'. So true, the chancellor should have just abolished child benefit completely. This benefit was introduced when there were concerns about a falling population, something I see no evidence of these days. Why people are paid to have children I have never understood. The savings would be enormous which could be used for tax cuts, benefiting everyone.

I like to know who filled in these polls I certainly didn't! I earn roughly 61,000 a year and my wife stays at home so we lose the lot, where someone that works under me earns 48,000 his wife earns roughly 40,000 so they are better off! How is that fair, they are a bunch of incompetent morons! Oh and the tax form, I can't wait, or do I just opt out..........certainly lost my vote!

I'm a conservative voter, although I voted U.K.I.P. in the European elections and will do again if we don't see plans to draw away from the E.U. My view on child benefit comes from the start of my married life in the 70s'. We did not receive it for the first child, only the second. Only when she was about 5 and it was introduced for the first. I married not expecting any family allowance as it was then. Nor H. Benefit either because it didn't come in until 1982, and I was under 25 as well. Since then marriage has been downgraded by removal of the Married Tax Allowance and the child tax allowance and I've seen it become easier for unmarried couples to be less accountable than married ones in the tax system. I've seen many people my age in despair at young couples expecting a baby, being informed it would be better if the female took on a flat and got benefit payments and the male spent a few nights there and the rest with his parents. It took away a responsible mindset and dangled an easier life. So the male earned as well and topped up the benefits the female was getting. The males could move from partner to partner and the females could take in other male boyfriends, all under the radar. Producing more children on the way. So yes the reduction gets my vote, but it should be done on family income like the same as responsible married couples, and be more accountable. F. Allowance was brought in after the war to encourage people to have children..we don't need to do that now. A a married woman we had to consider how many children we could afford. Since then we have seen the growth of dysfunctional families and children, because we have less accountability and responsibility. The result of nearly 30 years of a daft system.

This is terrible if you are a family with one person working that is just over the 50,000 then you rely on the child benefit for simple things, sometimes food. I can't believe they think that this is a fair way to treat all families. What happens when both parents earn 49,000 hey, they still get it but they are going to be better off than the family with one salary over 50. I think it stinks, and this would not encourage me to vote conservative in the next election.

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